39. Verse 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things, living creatures; and let birds fly above the earth, upon the face ¹ of the expanse of the heavens.

After the great lights have been kindled and lodged in the internal man, from which the external man receives its light, a person starts to live for the first time. Till then he can hardly be said to have lived, for he had imagined that the good he had done he had done from himself, and the truth he had uttered he had spoken from himself. And since man functioning from himself is dead - there being nothing in him that is not evil and false - therefore whatever he brings forth from himself is not living. So true is this that of himself he is incapable of doing any good deed that is in itself good. The fact that man cannot begin to think about good or to will it, and so cannot do good, unless the Lord is the source, is clear to everyone from the doctrine of faith, for the Lord says in Matthew,

He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. Matthew 13:37.

Nor can good come from anywhere else than the one fount itself of all good, as yet again He says,

Nobody is good but one, God. Luke 18:19.

[2] Nevertheless when the Lord is revitalizing a person, or regenerating him, He does allow him, to begin with, to imagine that good and truth originate in himself, for at that point a person cannot grasp anything else, or be led to believe and finally perceive, that all good and truth come from the Lord alone. As long as he held the former opinion his truths and goods were comparable to 'a tender plant', then 'a plant bearing seed', and after that 'a fruit tree', which are inanimate. But once he has been brought to life by love and faith and believes that the Lord is at work in every good deed he does and in every truth he utters, he is compared first to creeping things from the water and to birds which fly above the earth, and then to beasts, all of which are animate and are called 'living creatures'.

Footnotes:

202. 17. The offspring born of couples who are in a state of truly conjugial love derive from their parents a conjugial connection between good and truth, from which they have an inclination and faculty, if a son, to perceive matters having do to with wisdom, if a daughter, to love the things that wisdom teaches. Everyone knows from historical accounts in general and their own observations in particular that children inherit from their parents tendencies to the same kinds of things as had been connected with their parents' love and mode of life. However, they do not inherit or have transmitted to them the parents' actual affections or resulting modes of life, but only tendencies to these and also capacities for them (a point convincingly shown by some of the wise in the spiritual world, as reported in two narrative accounts presented above ¹ ).

[2] Evidence that descendants are drawn by hereditary inclinations into affections, thoughts, ways of speaking, and modes of life similar to those of their parents - if they do not break themselves of those inclinations - is clearly apparent from the Jewish nation today and its close similarity to that nation's ancestors in Egypt, in the desert, in the land of Canaan, and at the time of the Lord. It is apparent, moreover, not only from the close similarity in their minds, but also in their faces. Who does not recognize a Jew by his looks?

It is the same with other lines of descent. One may legitimately conclude from this that people are born with inclinations to similar things as their parents and that these inclinations are hereditary.

However, to keep actual thoughts and deeds from ensuing, it is Divinely provided that corrupt inclinations may be rectified, and that a capacity for this is also implanted. Resulting from this capacity are an ability and power in people to mend their habits, under the direction of parents and teachers, and afterwards by themselves when they come into their own right and judgment.

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